The 40 countries - known as the Tru Zone - together account for 60% of the world's mobile phones and include most EU countries, Australia, Japan and Russia. Calls to certain countries - including China, Hong Kong, USA and Canada - cost even less, at just 3 pence per minute to both landlines and mobiles.
Truphone frees people not only from high prices but from the fear of those high prices. "We're hanging up on roaming charges while others are still hung up on them," explained James Tagg, Truphone's CEO. "Right now, people don't know how much they'll be charged to make a mobile call to friends abroad or to call back home from holiday - but they do know it's expensive. So we've abolished roaming charges to make it the same low price to call any specific destination, from wherever they are in the world."
The potential savings for customers quickly mount up. For example, a 10 minute call from Europe to a UK landline with Vodafone's International Call Saver option currently costs a UK Vodafone customer £3.80, while the same call with Truphone costs a mere 30 pence. A 10 minute call to the UK from America for the same Vodafone customer currently costs £11.00 - but with Truphone still costs just 30 pence.
Truphone has also abolished fees for receiving mobile calls abroad. However, a UK Vodafone customer on its International Call Saver option is currently charged 75 pence per minute to answer a call in the USA; the same customer receiving a call in Europe is billed 19 pence per minute.
Because it routes calls over Wi-Fi and the internet, Truphone's tariff structure relates solely to the destination being called, and whether that destination is a landline or a mobile. Where the call is made from becomes irrelevant, making roaming charges redundant - at last.